Maid of the Mist Part 16

"We can start on that tomorrow. We've done enough for one day."

"We'll make a raft, like old Robinson Crusoe, and bring the stuff right down to the spit yonder," said Macro, waxing quite cheerful at the prospect. "Then we'll make a smaller raft to bring it aboard here."

"We'd better walk along that spit tomorrow and see if there's any opening to the sea."

"We can do that, but I doubt there's not, else this water wouldn't be so cold, and there'd be some movement in it. It's all dead like everything else."

They spent the rest of the daylight poking into every corner of the ship, and in the dark fo'c's'le Macro made a find of surpa.s.sing worth.

He had rooted everywhere, with a natural enjoyment in the process, and come on nothing but bare boards. "But you never know," he said, and went on rooting. And in the blackest corner his foot struck something loose which slid away and eluded him. He went down on his hands and knees and groped till he found it, and then gave a triumphant shout which brought up Wulfrey in haste.

It was a small round metal box such as was used for carrying flint and steel and tinder, well-worn and battered, but tightly closed, and the mate's fingers trembled with anxiety as he opened it with his knife.

"Thanks be!" he breathed deeply, for there in the little battered box lay all the possibilities of fire,--warmth, cooked food, life--all complete.

And--"Thank G.o.d!" said Wulfrey also. "That's the best find yet."

"If it'll work it's worth its weight in Guinea gold. But it's old, old," and he poked the tinder doubtfully with his finger, "as old as the ship, and that's older than you or me, I'm thinking. It's dropped out of some old pocket and rolled out of sight. We do have the deil's own luck."

"Providence!" said Wulfrey. "Can't we make a fire and roast some rabbit? I'm sick of raw meat."

"Where'd we make it? Galley-stove's gone with all the rest, and galley too for that matter.... Wouldn't do to set the ship afire.... There's only one safe way. Soon as we've got a bit of a raft together we'll bring over sand enough to make a fire-bed in the hold. Then we can roast all the rabbits in the island."

"What about the cover of the big hatchway there? Wouldn't that carry one of us and sand enough."

"Might. And there's wood enough and to spare in the skin of her down below. But it'll be dark in an hour."

"Come on. Let's get it overboard. I'll go. Can you rip up a board for a paddle?"

The hatch-cover was slightly domed and had four-inch coamings all round, and when let upside down on to the water made a sufficiently effective raft for light freight. Macro dropped down into the hold and ripped up a board and jumped it into pieces, and Wulfrey lowered himself gingerly down on to his frail craft and set off for the sh.o.r.e, with roast rabbit in his face.

"Ye'll have to look smart or ye'll be in the dark," Macro called after him, as he leaned over the side watching his clumsy progression.

"Ay, ay! I'll shout if I get lost," and the mate went down to break up firewood and shred filmy shavings in default of sulphur sticks.

Wulfrey, wafting slowly ash.o.r.e, lighted on a colony of rabbits intent on supper, and was able to capture a couple in their panic rush for their holes. Then he hastily loaded his float with all the sand it could safely carry and set off again for the ship in great content of mind.

The transfer of his cargo to the deck of the ship was a much more difficult and precarious job than getting it alongside. He tried throwing it up in handfuls, but that proved slow work and more than once came near to spilling him overboard. And finally, as the night was upon them, he took off his coat and sent up larger parcels in it; and so at last Macro cried enough, and having shown him how to wedge his float in between the rusty anchor-chain and the bows, so that the wind should not drift it away in the night, he helped him up over the side.

It was an anxious moment when the first sparks shredded down into the ancient tinder. But they caught and glowed, and with tenderest coaxing lighted the mate's carefully-prepared matches, and these the chips, and these the f.a.ggots, and the mighty cheer and joy of fire were theirs.

They slept that night in great comfort, replete with roasted meat, roofed from winds and dew, and grateful both, each in his own way, for the marvellous encouragement of this first day on the island.

Though their beds were but bare boards, they had no fault to find with them, but slept like tops. And Macro's black head was so full of the wonderful possibilities of that vast pile of wastry out beyond the point, in conjunction with this amazing find of the ships, that there was no room left in it for any thought of ghosts or evil spirits.

XIX

Over their last night's fire they had made provision of roast meat for breakfast, and after it they paddled precariously across to the other schooner, a couple of hundred yards away, and explored it thoroughly.

But it was in exactly the same condition as their own, so they closed all the hatches again and then, after a short discussion, decided to leave the solution of the puzzle of the ships for the present and devote the day to the salvage of any necessaries they could discover among the wreckage.

They paddled across to the southern spit which divided the lake from the sea, and found it a bare hundred yards in width, and at its highest point not more than ten feet above high-water level. They walked briskly along the side of the narrow channel that joined the two lakes, on past the first one, and in a couple of hours reached the sandy point where they had landed two days before. Out above the piles of wreckage the gray cloud of sea-birds swung and whirled, and their shrill screamings rose and fell with the varied fortunes of their quest.

"Screeching deevils!" was the mate's comment on them, and presently, "It'll be a long pull back with a log of a raft. It must be six or seven miles, I reckon."

"Perhaps we'll strike a boat among the wreckage."

"Ah--p'r'aps. We do have the deil's own luck."

It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it neared the sh.o.r.e, into great green and white combers of exquisite beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss.

There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For in that countless predatory host, although its components were but birds, there was menace pa.s.sing words. It made them feel bare and vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went.

They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it.

There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements.

Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and developed new and startling sides to his character.

Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity.

He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts.

Now and again strange e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns broke from him. More than once, in the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted s.n.a.t.c.hes of weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea.

The man seemed demented, drunk with a rage for plunder and the destruction of everything that stood between him and it. His great club whirled, and the blows flailed here and there without any apparent regard to direction. The l.u.s.t of slaughter and demolishment burst from him in volcanic fire and fury. For the moment he had reverted to his elemental type.

To the cooler head below he looked dangerous. Wulfrey's amused amazement gave place to doubt and a touch of anxiety. He could only hope that his companion was not often subject to fits such as this.

But the Berserk madness was not wholly without method, and presently plunder of all kinds came raining down on the raft.

Heralded by a sharp "Below there!" came a roll of linen and one of woollen cloth, a bale of blankets, more rolls,--this time of silk and satin and velvet, all more or less damaged by the sea, though they were the pick and cream of his salvaging, and all no doubt dryable.

"Good heavens! What does he want with these?" thought Wulfrey, but piled them up obediently.

Then, following the unmistakable course of the marauder up above, and clawing the raft along to keep in touch with him, down came on his head a bulging little sack, which felt like beans but proved to be coffee, and presently, after a pause, necessitated by packing arrangements up above, a series of soft bundles made up in crimson silk and tied with slimy rope.

Then, after another pause punctuated by shouts and crashes, down came a rattling heap of rusty cooking utensils all slung together with more slimy rope, a rusty axe, four broken oars. Till at last the raft became so crowded that there was barely standing room left on it.

"Steady, above there! We're full up. I can't take another pound, and I doubt if we can get this all home safely."

"Just this, man!" and Macro appeared up above with a small keg in his arms, and let himself and it carefully down on to the raft, with every appearance of a return to sanity.

"Man!" he said, with the afterglow of it all still in his face. "That was fine. We'll come again."

"We've got to get all these things home first."

"Easy that. This wind'll carry us fine," and he set to work with a couple of the broken oars and a blanket, and contrived a sail of sorts.